Complete Plays. Оскар Уайльд

And what I have is yours, and what I have not

       Your fancy lends me, like a prodigal

       Spending its wealth on what is nothing worth.

       [Kisses him.]

      GUIDO

       Methinks I am bold to look upon you thus:

       The gentle violet hides beneath its leaf

       And is afraid to look at the great sun

       For fear of too much splendour, but my eyes,

       O daring eyes! are grown so venturous

       That like fixed stars they stand, gazing at you,

       And surfeit sense with beauty.

      DUCHESS

       Dear love, I would

       You could look upon me ever, for your eyes

       Are polished mirrors, and when I peer

       Into those mirrors I can see myself,

       And so I know my image lives in you.

      GUIDO [taking her in his arms]

       Stand still, thou hurrying orb in the high heavens,

       And make this hour immortal! [A pause.]

      DUCHESS

       Sit down here,

       A little lower than me: yes, just so, sweet,

       That I may run my fingers through your hair,

       And see your face turn upwards like a flower

       To meet my kiss.

       Have you not sometimes noted,

       When we unlock some long-disuséd room

       With heavy dust and soiling mildew filled,

       Where never foot of man has come for years,

       And from the windows take the rusty bar,

       And fling the broken shutters to the air,

       And let the bright sun in, how the good sun

       Turns every grimy particle of dust

       Into a little thing of dancing gold?

       Guido, my heart is that long-empty room,

       But you have let love in, and with its gold

       Gilded all life. Do you not think that love

       Fills up the sum of life?

      GUIDO

       Ay! without love

       Life is no better than the unhewn stone

       Which in the quarry lies, before the sculptor

       Has set the God within it. Without love

       Life is as silent as the common reeds

       That through the marshes or by rivers grow,

       And have no music in them.

      DUCHESS

       Yet out of these

       The singer, who is Love, will make a pipe

       And from them he draws music; so I think

       Love will bring music out of any life.

       Is that not true?

      GUIDO

       Sweet, women make it true.

       There are men who paint pictures, and carve statues,

       Paul of Verona and the dyer’s son,

       Or their great rival, who, by the sea at Venice,

       Has set God’s little maid upon the stair,

       White as her own white lily, and as tall,

       Or Raphael, whose Madonnas are divine

       Because they are mothers merely; yet I think

       Women are the best artists of the world,

       For they can take the common lives of men

       Soiled with the money-getting of our age,

       And with love make them beautiful.

      DUCHESS

       Ah, dear,

       I wish that you and I were very poor;

       The poor, who love each other, are so rich.

      GUIDO Tell me again you love me, Beatrice.

      DUCHESS [fingering his collar]

       How well this collar lies about your throat.

       [LORD MORANZONE looks through the door from the corridor outside.]

      GUIDO Nay, tell me that you love me.

      DUCHESS I remember,

       That when I was a child in my dear France,

       Being at Court at Fontainebleau, the King

       Wore such a collar.

      GUIDO Will you not say you love me?

      DUCHESS [smiling]

       He was a very royal man, King Francis,

       Yet he was not royal as you are.

       Why need I tell you, Guido, that I love you?

       [Takes his head in her hands and turns his face up to her.]

       Do you not know that I am yours for ever,

       Body and soul?

       [Kisses him, and then suddenly catches sight of MORANZONE and leaps up.]

       Oh, what is that? [MORANZONE disappears.]

      GUIDO What, love?

      DUCHESS

       Methought I saw a face with eyes of flame

       Look at us through the doorway.

      GUIDO

       Nay, ‘twas nothing:

       The passing shadow of the man on guard.

       [The DUCHESS still stands looking at the window.]

       ‘Twas nothing, sweet.

      DUCHESS

       Ay! what can harm us now,

       Who are in Love’s hand? I do not think I’d care

       Though the vile world should with its lackey Slander

       Trample and tread upon my life; why should I?

       They say the common field-flowers of the field

       Have sweeter scent when they are trodden on

       Than when they bloom alone, and that some herbs

       Which have no perfume, on being bruiséd die

       With all Arabia round them; so it is

       With the young lives this dull world seeks to crush,

       It does but bring the sweetness out of them,

       And makes them lovelier often. And besides,

       While we have love we have the best of life:

       Is it not so?

      GUIDO

       Dear, shall we play or sing?

       I think that I could sing now.

      DUCHESS

       Do not speak,

       For there are times when all existences

       Seem narrowed to one single ecstasy,

       And Passion sets a seal upon the lips.

      GUIDO

       Oh, with mine own lips let me break that seal!

       You love me, Beatrice?

      DUCHESS

       Ay! is it not strange